WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 604: The Stolen World (19)
──────
「User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 229
Current Location: Jungdong Jungang 3-gil, Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province
Sage’s Advice: 3」
- Han Ga-in
--- Flap!
I unfolded the painting, Kingdom of Dreams, and prayed.
Please, work!
Kingdom of Dreams had been completely tattered by the Stone Tablet's attack just three days ago.
Even now, the black lines running across the painting looked wrong.
Still, there seemed to be fewer than there had been three days ago.
Could I force it to work like this?
There were two main reasons I wanted to use Kingdom of Dreams, even if I had to force it.
First, I wanted to discuss things with my companions without Aedia watching.
Second, I wanted to check on the companions who had remained at Hotel Delight.
Yesterday, a fierce clash between the Moon Demon, Elder Wisdom, and the Pillagers had taken place in the skies over Seoul.
The aftermath was as devastating as if a massive earthquake, one that would go down in human history, had struck the heart of Seoul.
At least several million people must have died instantly that day.
Seoul had become one enormous graveyard.
It was a bizarre thing to say, but the deaths of Seoul's citizens were more comedy than tragedy.
The souls of the dead wouldn't be devoured by the Moon. At a time like this, the Afterlife was safer than the world of the living.
The companions at Hotel Delight were all alive, thankfully, but I had no way of knowing whether they were all right.
There had been no way to contact them since the clash.
“...”
「Advice: 3 -> 2」
‘Can I use Kingdom of Dreams in this state?’
「It may be used as a simple meeting place, but nothing beyond that is possible. Exercise caution.」
So we could meet in dreams and talk, but we couldn't move anywhere?
That was enough.
I closed my eyes and settled my mind.
* * *
The first thing I realized was that the companions at Hotel Delight were awake.
For Kingdom of Dreams to work, not only the user but the target also had to be dreaming.
Grandpa Mook-seong, Elena, and Mi-ro were all awake, so there was no way to reach them.
With no other choice, I went to A-ri's dream next.
A-ri was floating inside a pale bubble in a place full of writhing flesh. It looked like she was exploring the insides of some animal.
I struggled my way over, grabbed the bubble, and shook it hard. A-ri's hazy eyes cleared.
“Ah?”
“Why is your dream such a hellscape?”
“... My dreams are often like this. More importantly, isn't Kingdom of Dreams broken?”
“It still isn't normal. Let's move quickly.”
The next place we arrived at was Jin-cheol's dream.
He was exploring an old hospital in a state of extreme tension, listening to the screams of patients in agony, when...
“Your dream's no joke either?”
“He must've seen all sorts of things while working as an agent.”
“Does working for the Management Bureau mean nightmares become part of everyday life?”
“Well, you could call it one of our benefits.”
“...”
“I was joking.”
It wasn't funny at all.
Anyway, Jin-cheol kept trying to shoot us, so we smacked him on the back of the head and dragged him out.
“Urgh! Huh? Ah! Is this Kingdom of Dreams?”
“Yes.”
Finally, Eun-sol was sitting in a neat office, drinking a cup of coffee.
“All right, everyone, sit down. Let's talk here.”
It felt like she had known I was coming.
“Did you know I'd come?”
“Even if it wasn't today, I thought you'd use Kingdom of Dreams eventually.”
Eun-sol must have felt the same frustration at not being able to speak freely.
“Want a cup of coffee? It's dream coffee, not the real thing, but still.”
After taking a moment to catch our breath, the secret meeting began.
“Let's start with the things that seemed strange in Aedia's explanation.”
Unusually, Jin-cheol spoke up right away.
“According to that woman, the rebel faction permanently killed the Royalty of the first Ark, right?”
“That was what she said.”
“Permanently killing them means destroying their souls so they can't regress, doesn't it?”
Everyone nodded, and Jin-cheol looked at me as if he couldn't understand.
“Then how is Ga-in still alive?”
“...”
“He committed the ultimate crime of freeing the Royalty. Shouldn't they have destroyed his soul too?”
Eun-sol scratched her cheek and looked at A-ri.
“Do you know something?”
A-ri thought for a moment, then spoke.
“Soul Extinction. The worst punishment the Management Bureau gives traitors.”
“Destruction of the soul?”
“First, you need to understand this. Soul Extinction isn't easy, even for the Management Bureau. Tools that can pierce someone once and instantly destroy their soul are extremely rare.”
“Those things exist?”
“The Spear of Mortality is the best example.”
The Spear of Mortality was an Inheritance owned by Mi-ro of the Deep Sea Hotel, which had become a ghost story.
An Inheritance of that level could crush a Regressor's soul with a single stab.
Eun-sol nodded.
“So unless it's an extreme Inheritance focused on offensive power, destroying souls isn't easy?”
“It's difficult, and sometimes there are limits on how many times it can be used. That's why sealing sentences were handed down far more often than Soul Extinction. This was often used for that.”
The Living Camera sprang out of A-ri's arms.
“One click, and in many cases, problem solved!”
So that was why A-ri had gone through so much trouble to bring the camera from Room 207.
“Or they could trap someone in an Otherworld that was nearly impossible to escape.”
“So you're saying they might not have used a weapon for Soul Extinction on Ga-in because they didn't have one?”
“That's one possibility. But I don't think it's likely.”
“Huh?”
She had explained all that, only to say it probably wasn't the case?
“No matter how rare a weapon is, you use it when the time comes. If you don't use it on a traitor destined to go down in human history, when would you use it?”
“...”
“Even if there were only one means of Soul Extinction left, I think they would've used it on Ga-in.”
“Hmm...”
It was a strange feeling.
“They even executed multiple members of the Royalty? They must have had several means of Soul Extinction. In that case, they should have destroyed Researcher Ga-in's soul too.”
“Then how is Ga-in fine?”
“Why do you think he's fine?”
“Huh?”
Even Eun-sol and Jin-cheol's eyes widened.
At that moment, a thought came to me.
Before I came to the Hotel, I had been an incomplete Regressor, just as Mama, whom Sang-hyeon had met in America, had been.
Because of that, memories of the past had been mixed together, and I mistook several lives for one.
Had I always been like this?
Could an incomplete Regressor become one of the three highest-ranking figures in the Management Bureau?
A-ri spoke with a confident expression.
“This is what I think. In the past, when the Researcher freed the Royalty, he must have made preparations to protect himself.”
It wasn't difficult to predict that the Management Bureau would punish him for freeing the Royalty.
“I don't know what those preparations were, but they worked. Even the Management Bureau couldn't extinguish the Researcher's soul. Still, he suffered significant damage.”
“... His Soul Rank fell? He became an incomplete Regressor and could no longer maintain his sense of self?”
“That's it. What do you think? Sounds plausible, right?”
It was convincing.
Still, there was no way to verify it, so it seemed best to leave the matter there.
“Let's move on. This was actually why I gathered everyone.”
Everyone turned to me.
“Our plans from here on. You remember that the Owl gave us some meaningful advice not long ago.”
A-ri answered immediately.
“Rejoice that there is more than one adversary. If there were only one, you could never win. Because there are several, there is an opening.”
“Exactly. What does that mean? It means we should actively take advantage of the fact that this isn't a two-sided conflict, but a three-sided one.”
Eun-sol's eyes gleamed.
“A three-sided conflict... Following the usual approach, the two relatively weaker sides join forces to stop the strongest one?”
Jin-cheol nodded.
“So we gang up on the strongest bastard first?”
“Don't use words like that.”
“... It means the same thing.”
I spoke again.
“All right, let's compare the three major factions carefully. First, the Management Bureau. Compared to the other factions, it is the weakest in both power and strategic ability.”
One person visibly flinched.
A-ri must have been uncomfortable hearing her lifelong organization rated so low, but she needed to accept the truth before we could move on.
Eun-sol nodded.
“They lack information, and they lack power even more... They're the weakest faction.”
“Second are the Pillagers. Compared to the Management Bureau, they have more information, and if they all unite, they have enough power to threaten the Moon.”
“Hmm...”
“But this makes me wonder. Do the Pillagers really get along with one another?”
A-ri nodded as if she had been thinking the same thing.
“No way. They're only together because they have a common enemy.”
“The Pillagers are a faction that could easily fall into internal conflict.”
The Pillagers had never been one team and could never become one.
They had only united temporarily against a common enemy.
That was the Pillager faction's fundamental weakness.
“Third is the Moon. It has existed the longest, so it has plenty of information and great power. There is no risk of internal conflict either.”
That was why the Moon was bound to win if things continued to the end.
Eun-sol looked uneasy.
“The Moon is the only one without a weakness.”
“Which brings us to the next point.”
“The next point?”
“What I'm about to say may be unpleasant for A-ri to hear, but...”
“Just say it.”
“... It's my honest opinion.”
“I said, say it.”
“I think that if the Management Bureau wins, we can at least maintain the current state of things.”
“That's right.”
“Even if the Pillagers win, it wouldn't be such a terrible ending.”
“...”
A-ri fell silent.
Eun-sol and Jin-cheol, on the other hand, nodded as if they agreed deep down.
“If you get down to it, aren't the Pillagers just a Management Bureau-like group from another Loop?”
“...”
“If they win? Whichever Pillager arrives first would simply rebuild civilization in the next world.”
“...”
“It wouldn't be some great tragedy. Someone else, similar but different, would come and do what this Loop's Management Bureau did long ago.”
It might have been painful for A-ri and Grandpa, who had belonged to the current Management Bureau.
But for people who had been thrown into a reality with no family or anything else, it didn't make much difference whether the Management Bureau won or the Pillagers did.
There was only one who could never be allowed to win.
“The Moon absolutely can't win.”
A-ri, who had been silent, muttered softly.
“The group sitting in the chair, the group trying to take the chair, and...”
“The bastard trying to break the chair.”
It was fine if the person sitting in the chair kept sitting there.
It wasn't such a big problem if someone else took it.
But the chair couldn't be broken.
“... Yeah. I understand what you mean, Ga-in.”
I continued, looking at the others.
“In this three-sided conflict, the Moon is the strongest and has the fewest weaknesses. On top of that, it's the one that can never be allowed to win.”
The others must have guessed what I was about to say by then.
With a solemn expression, I declared it to everyone.
“From now on, we must find a way to gather the power of every other faction and bring down the Moon.”
The goal had been set.
All that remained was figuring out how to do it!
* * *
As the meeting came to an end, we naturally began talking about the companions at Hotel Delight.
“Are Elena, Mi-ro, and Grandpa all right?”
I pointed to the absence of dreams from the three of them.
“According to the Status Window, all three are alive. You can see that they don't have dreams, right?”
“What does that mean?”
“It means all three are awake.”
All three were awake.
It was simple, yet strange.
“At this hour? All three of them are awake?”
It was around three or four in the morning.
“That's the strange part.”
A-ri frowned slightly.
“I didn't think we'd lose contact with Hotel Delight this completely. I can't believe even the phones are down...”
Jin-cheol asked, sounding puzzled.
“Seoul was destroyed, so isn't it obvious the phones are down? The cell towers couldn't possibly be intact.”
It was a reasonable thought, but A-ri's phone was no ordinary object.
“This phone belonged to the Boiled Potato.”
“The Boiled Potato?”
“Oh, Basilio. His head was dropped during the escape from the Ark and crushed like mashed potatoes.”
“... So you're saying it's a phone that belonged to one of The Silent?”
“That's right.”
A-ri's, or more precisely Basilio's, phone was an incredible item that had let her call Grandpa outside even from inside the Ark.
It shouldn't have depended on something as ordinary as cell towers. Even if Seoul vanished, shouldn't it still work?
“It seems something serious has happened at Hotel Delight...”
“How about using Advice?”
“Hmm... If I use up two this early, I’m worried about tomorrow. Still, let's use it.”
「Advice: 2 -> 1」
‘Are the companions at Hotel Delight all right?’
The answer was something I truly hadn't expected.
「The Causality of the Wish Your Companion Made is coming to fruition.」
“Huh?”
I blankly looked at Eun-sol.
She tilted her head as well.
“Ga-in? What's wrong?”
Footnotes:
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